scenes of parallax
by thirteendaze
Summary: "Don't I know you?" he whispered, swaying slightly on his feet. The switchblade was limp in his hand; Axel watched it blearily through his open eye, sliding forever towards the floor. His head hit the stone with a sickening crunch, Roxas' eyes still confusedly trying to make sense of his features. "No matter," he said, quietly, Axel fading out of consciousness. "I'll know soon."


**Author:** ravewalker (lj) ; thirteenthesia/thirteendaze (tumblr/rp tumblr)  
**Fandom:** Kingdom Hearts  
**Alphas:** Neffectual (lj), Neitzarr (lj, tumblr), Roterhimmelxx (twitter)  
**Betas:** Neffectual (lj)  
**Rating:** R (just to be safe. I have no fucking clue)  
**Warnings:** kidnapping, torture, (smut), m/m, awkward flashbacks, dubious canon and death? (kinda).  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own jackshit concerning Kingdom Hearts. I also don't own the quote/s I nabbed from American Psycho.  
**Summary:** Roxas is your everyday skater kid living in Twilight Town. That is, until a red-haired stranger with fire for eyes appears one day in the square, bringing with him a host of unexplained problems and everything starts to disintegrate around him. Roxas wants answers, and he wants them fast - and seeing as this stranger is apparently the only one who can see him, let alone interact with him, _he'll_ have to be the one to explain everything away. Information comes at a price, however, and is the loss of his humanity worth the knowledge it affords? And why does this stranger look familiar? An alternative retelling of the bits that came before and during the prologue of Kingdom Hearts II (and 358/2 Days, evidently).  
**Author notes:** Parallax is an astrophysicist term, but here used to show the differences in how people view the same occurrences so differently- but it is usually only used to measure the distances between celestial bodies by using the displacement of the apparent position of an object when viewed along two different lines of sight. It comes from the Greek word "parallaxis", meaning 'alteration'. That's the simplistic version, anyway; and whilst I find this shit interesting, having studied Astrophysics for a bit, I don't think many others will find my in-depth knowledge (read: bullshitting) of the stuff that fascinating, so I'll shush. Also, this Roxas takes on a few qualities from the Roxas character I roleplay on tumblr (thirteendaze), and is therefore batshit, but not entirely the same person, so no serial killer hijinks here (sadly). This is...a work in progress. Consider it a skeleton of sorts. Written for the Kingdom Hearts Big Bang Challenge 2012.  
**Wordcount:** 10,750.  
**Artist: **Kookieme, of tumblr. Regretfully unable to finish art to posting deadline. Will update with art when complete.  
**Playlist:** Accompanying playlist to be found here shortly.

* * *

The sun shines whilst the world ends. This is a proven fact, and a measure of how the universe will carry on, regardless of what else is happening within its limitless boundaries. The rest of the stars too, some burdened with strange small terrestrial satellites of their own, will continue to radiate outwards, without a care as to the worries of their system's inhabitants. The stars will burn out, eventually, and the life on their own little worlds will fade away, but the universe will always continue.

* * *

[playlist: starships]

On this particular world it was a Tuesday, or any other day quite like it, and the Twilight Town gang were getting ready to leave. As always, Roxas was the last to appear at the Usual Spot, eyes straining against the bright sun and too little restful sleep, and he pushed the tattered curtain aside, greeting his friends, an inane grin plastered upon his face, once-summer-new plaid shirt worn thin at the elbows from overwear.

_Last week of summer, here I come!_

"Yo, Roxas! Late _again_, huh? Your turn to buy ice-creams tonight!"  
"Yeah, fuck you too, Hayner. I couldn't find my keys." In addition to his usual caustic greeting, Roxas unshouldered his grey messenger bag and threw it unceremoniously onto Hayner's stomach, who snorted, and made no move to move from the battered sofa (the spoils from two summers ago, when they'd managed to drag it all the way up the winding streets from the dumping ground).  
"Same old excuse."

"Hey, Roxas," Olette smiled, seated daintily behind a table. "Sleep well?"  
"Like the dead. Nah, not really."  
She frowned. "You really should go get that looked at. It's been months."  
Roxas shrugged it off, opting to bodily use Hayner as a seat instead, and changing the subject. "So, Pence, what're we doing today?"  
"Thought we could make some headway on that group project we were meant to be doing."  
"Booooooooooooring," droned Hayner, squashed somewhere underneath Roxas, who responded by sitting on him harder, grinning as his friend began to groan.  
"Think about it this way: we have one week left to do absolutely everything we want," reasoned Olette. "And we don't want to ruin the last day of it by doing it then. So let's do it now."  
"Don't look at me for ideas," Hayner muttered, picking at the upholstery with a disinterested look on his face.  
"You know," Pence said thoughtfully, stroking his chin as if it were a particularly reluctant cat, "there's always those Seven Mysteries the teacher was banging on about."  
"The what?"  
"You know...the Mysteries. I bet we could write that up for our project." Pence counted them off slowly, chewing a lower lip still stained with breakfast sugar. "The disappearing step, the ghost train, the haunted sack...the moaning, the...there was something else, I swear..."  
Hayner stared at Pence. "Well, I'm glad someone thought of something for us to do because I was damned if I was gonna."  
"All in favour?" Olette questioned, jumping in.  
"Yeah, sure, whatever," Hayner yawned. "Let's go then if we're going. Gerroff me, you fucker."  
Roxas flicked him in the ear before obliging, dusting off his jeans and rolling his eyes. Olette smiled at him, ever-suffering, and slung her bag over her shoulder, leading the four of them out into the daylight.

* * *

"Hayner?" Roxas' worried voice echoed throughout the black tunnels, questioning everything, if the querulous tremor in his throat were to be believed. "Pence? Olette?"

As almost expected, there was no reply. He tried to put on a brave face, his nervous laughter stifled in the gloom.

"This _really_ isn't funny, you guys. Seriously, cut it out. I can hear you _breathing_, Hayner, you bastard. Think you can just leave me here like that?"

"Sorry to...disappoint you. Roxas."

Roxas froze. _What the - who could - ?_

He stuck an arm out, feeling for the damp wall instinctively, but collided with something warm and soft - _was that leather? oh, shit, who the fuck is it?_ - someone, even, taller and terrifyingly familiar. Roxas couldn't place the voice, and struck back, flailing. A soft chuckle. Someone was breathing on him, gently.

"Better be careful. You wouldn't want to lose yourself in here."

And then.

And _then_.

There's more breathing, sure, and then something soft, something warm and gentle against his lips. Someone's breath catches, and Roxas isn't sure whose for a moment, pushing back against the stone walls behind him but not trapped, just captivated and close, and the strange pair of lips envelop his like they were made to. It's hard not to comply and fall along with them, but when something Roxas realises is a tongue presses against his teeth, he bites down hard, ducks underneath the stranger's arms and runs along the tunnel, refusing to stumble.

"Roxas?"

Roxas' face breaks into one of relief, cracking beneath the adrenaline rush. "Shit. Pence, is that you?"

"Jeeez, Rox. Heavy breathing moaning central in there or what?"

At the end of the tunnel, in the sweet sunlight, Roxas paused, greeted by all three of his friends who were sporting near-identical grins. "What?"

"Meeting someone special in there, were we?"

"Guess we can cross off that as totally _not_ a wonder."

"Well, if you count it being a wonder that he managed to get lai - "

"Oi! Enough. Not funny."

"Oh, relax, we're just joking. Anyway, it's lunchtime, we thought we'd lost you. Get a move on!"

Roxas slunk behind the three of them, chattering madly, all the way back up to the Usual Spot, thankful that they couldn't see the face he was currently sporting; unimpressed and pissed off. Mercy, really, they couldn't add to the ire.

Because whoever this stranger was was adding to it in spades. Big ones.

* * *

Uh-uh. There is no _way_ I'm going in there." Hayner shook his head, backing off slightly.  
"You scared?" Roxas clucked at him, a teasingly mocking smile playing around his features. "Come on, I bet it'll be awesome in there. Rotten floorboards and skeletons, what more could you want?"  
"Yeah, well," and he looked abashed this time, eyes pointedly staring away from his friend, "I- I'm wearing new shoes, alright? I don't want to ruin them."  
"_Chicken_."  
"Maybe it wasn't such a good idea coming here this late," Pence added, looking warily up at the darkening sky and the forest behind them in no small amount of trepidation. "I mean, it's hard enough finding your way back in the daylight..."  
"Oh, come _on_ you guys." Roxas looked to Olette for some kind of verbal cue, but she merely shrugged, yawning and looking away. "It'll be more fun in the dark. We'll get the last bit of the project all done today and then we can actually go _do_ something awesome around here, for once."  
"I dunno, Roxas, it looks...creepy. And I heard it's really unsafe in there too..." She trailed off. Roxas analysed her expression carefully. Worried, scared, glazed-over eyes fixated on a point behind him, through the locked wrought-iron gates. He turned to look, but saw nothing there, and sighed.  
"You guys...you really don't want to go in, do you?" More serious now.  
"Sorry, dude. Maybe another time?" Hayner grinned weakly.  
"Fine. _Fine_." Roxas turned, irrationally peeved now, and began stalking back through the trees in the opposite direction. The others could only shrug it off and follow.

* * *

[playlist: open road]

Roxas skated his way up to Station Heights, ready to ante up his contribution towards the pot, but before he could reach the station steps where his friends would inevitably be waiting, he sneezed. The salty breeze seemed to stutter - something crackled in the air around him, glitching sideways like a faultline. Shaking it off, he slung his board beneath an arm and looked around, confused at the break.

A small, thin girl stood there in a crinkly white shell dress, long hair white-blonde and face deeply sad.

"Roxas," she said, and it wasn't a question. _She knew me_, Roxas realised. _ She knew, but...Oh, screw it._ This wasn't making any sense.  
"Uh...hi. And...you are?"  
She raised a finger to her lips. Her nails were stained with paint and parchment, and she smelt a little like dusty crayons, Roxas noticed.  
"I just...wanted to meet you. Just this once."  
"But...don't you...know me already?"  
She looked at him, properly this time, pale blue eyes to deep sea-bright ones.  
"_Not this time_," she whispered, and walked past him.  
When he turned to look after her, she'd vanished, leaving only her perfume and a scrap of paper nestled in his left hand.

Later on, he slipped it into his diary, resolving never to look at it again.

* * *

_Restoration at 28%._

* * *

[playlist: shores of orion]

"Number Eight."  
Saix was always to be found in the Grey Room, and today was no exception. Axel walked right up to him, all casual nonchalance with a touch of cheek, grinning at Demyx who was perpetually tuning up his sitar, before affixing his face into a much less amused expression, the full fury of which was directed purely at Saix, eyebrows furrowed, and voice dangerously clipped.  
"Shoot, Saix. Which dreary little backwater world are you sending me to today?"  
His superior regarded him curiously, before setting down his clipboard. "Actually...we have no need of you today. You're free to do whatever pleases you."  
"No tricks?"  
A quirked eyebrow, perhaps even a little predatory. "You think me capable of such base humour?"  
Axel crafted his face into a winning smile. "_Sweet_. See you fuckers later, I'm gonna catch me some quality _alone_ time."  
"Keep the noise down!" Demyx called after him. By way of response, Axel saluted, slinking back off into the corridor, and ignoring the snort Xigbar gave him as he passed.

As soon as he was out of sight, his previously languorous walk quickened to a silent run, feet barely touching the floor as he flew past, previously memorised orders flashing through his mind like wildfire.

_"Bring him back alive, or bring back the weapon. I have no preference as to either; the experiment has run its course."_

Axel stopped before the one of the many laboratories, this one always, mercifully, empty. The holo-room, as it were, where they were meant to replay their missions in excruciatingly close detail, but which no one ever utilised, which now harboured a small dinky little digitized world of its own.

And Axel was going to crack it wide open and retrieve the prize.

* * *

[playlist: light dance]

Axel had almost walked in on Roxas teaching Xion about the stars once - he'd been walking past her room with no real destination in mind, when he heard a half-unfamiliar voice talking animatedly about how to reach the stars; it took him a second to realise that was _Roxas'_ voice, strangely enthused, and so he paused, flattening himself against the door to listen.

"...so if you want to know how far away a star is, you use the angle between two different lines of sight from you to that star. In arcseconds or something. Vexen taught me that once," Roxas finished - was that pride in his voice? What _was_ that?  
"It made sense at the time anyway...Not that you can see the stars here." That was definitely sadness, Axel knew that much. _But how...?_  
"But when you get your keyblade back, we'll go see the stars together on _all_ the different worlds!"  
Xion giggled at the enthusiasm, his shining smile; and outside the room, Axel frowned, something inside him breaking witnessing that child-like grin.

When Xion disappeared for good, disappeared whole from their memories like a coloured drop of oil in the ocean, Roxas stopped smiling.

* * *

Axel was the first to greet Roxas when he returned from his first proper lone mission out, covered in bug guts and something that looked a little too close to blood for anyone to be happy about. In truth, he'd been waiting there for a few hours, nervous that the kid wouldn't return, almost worried even that he'd forgotten to tell him something of use that would stop him getting killed...perhaps not _worried_, worried implied feelings and all sorts of things Axel didn't have. Perhaps the closest he could come was vague parental interest - but even then it sounded too strange and wrong in his head to be believable, and so he ignored it, pushing those thoughts to the back of his mind. The pillar he'd chosen to lean against, nonchalantly, was beginning to give him a slight backache after an hour of constant fidgeting, jumping at the slightest noise.

The huge door swung open, and Axel tensed, before remembering himself, and relaxing his shoulders and arms, arranging a cheeky grin on his face that fell flat to a frown once he saw Saix stepping through, evidently having been away on a mission of his own.

"Axel," Saix nodded, faux-courteously. "Waiting for something?"  
"Carry on walking, _Isa_," Axel spat loudly, crossing his arms. "Haven't you got someone else to bitch at? For dragging a kennel into the Superior's room and leaving dog biscuits all over the floor, say?"  
Saix sniffed, tossing a lock of hair back over his shoulder neatly, passing Axel with a sly twitch in his mouth. "At least I'm not - what was it the Superior said - _overly emotionally invested_ in the progression of the new recruit, hmm?"  
"Oh, shut your traitor mouth," he muttered, turning away.  
"You're so delightfully bitter," Saix hummed, walking away. "Your _sweetheart's_ outside, by the way."  
"Fuck you, too."  
"Lost your chance _lo-ong_ ago," came the fading reply from further off, as Axel moved to push the heavy door open.

Roxas was indeed outside, and covered in something green and sticky, his hair matted and stained a rich deep red. He was dragging the keyblade behind him, and looked...different. Changed. Older in a tantalisingly untouchable way.  
"Hey, squirt."  
"Wh- oh. It's you." Roxas allowed the Keyblade to disappear into the miasma between worlds, before slipping inside past Axel, and shaking off a little. "I look like shit, don't I?"  
"You look...wet," Axel admitted, face twitching in amusement. "Rookies get aaaall the fun jobs."  
"If I'd known 'fun' were a synonym for 'green bug-eyed monster who wants to disembowel me', I'd have thrown the mission back in Saix's smug little face," Roxas muttered, stretching out and walking away, ignoring the small puddles of green goo that pooled around his feet. "Speaking of faces, get out of mine, I need a fucking shower."  
"Uh..." Axel resisted the urge to ask him whether he needed help, instead pointing a gloved finger towards his head, parroting his own catchphrase. "You sure you're not...bleeding out there, Rox?"  
"_Don't_ call me _Rox_," came the automatic reply. "And no. Something exploded on me."  
Roxas turned back, something twinkling in his far-too-bright blue eyes, something rather like a grin. "But I kicked its arse from here to Neverland."  
"_That's my Roxas_," Axel didn't say, watching him trudge onward into the Castle with all the bravado of a battle-weary war-scarred hero, hair sticking up in odd directions and matted flat across the back. Triumphant, almost, but revelling in it a little too much.  
"That's my Roxas," he whispered into the silence.

* * *

Axel had found a notebook, half-burnt and battered, in the corner of Roxas' room, when he went looking for him. The only writings still visible lay across two pages, the first in Namine's spider-cursive script, crossed through but only just readable:

"His days are numbered."

The other was unquestionably in Roxas' italic scrawl.

"Day 355: I am DONE WITH THIS."

"You can't turn on the Organization!"

"Fucking _watch me_."

"Roxas, it doesn't have to be like this. _We_ don't have to be like this."

A sad, angry, hopeless, ruined and broken face stared back at him, and Axel stopped speaking, for there was truly nothing left to say.

And that was the last they saw of each other.

Until now.

* * *

Just any other bright sunny day in Twilight Town, and the gang were getting ready to set out. Roxas was the last to turn up at the Usual Spot, his breath hitching a little from the long run over.  
"Hey," he announced. "Sorry I'm late! I left my keys at the - "  
Roxas stopped, tentatively staring at each of them in turn. None of them had moved since he'd entered, no bright faces turned towards him in glee like usual.  
"Hayner?" he asked uncertainly, moving towards the three of them. "Pence? Olette?"  
He waved a hand in front of their faces. The only response was a sigh from the dejected-looking trio; Hayner slipping further into the scratchy confines of the mismatched sofa.  
"Guys...?"  
Roxas walked right up to Hayner, hand outstretched and drew back in shock when his fingers fell right through his friend's shoulder. "What the - Hayner?"  
Hayner rolled over into the couch, grumbling to himself. "It's too hooooot. I vote for staying right here."  
Olette sighed deeply, hands on her hips. "Someone's got to drag you out of your stupor. We've got one more day of summer left, and you're just going to lie here and waste it?"  
"Chill, Olette, it's not like we've got anything else to do. We did all the Wonders yesterday, remember?" Pence yawned, muddling his way over to the sofa and collapsing next to his friend. "Another vote for sleeeeeep."  
"Oh, honestly, you guys," she exhaled, eyes making quiet love to the ceiling. "I suppose...we could just stay here. I'll write up the homework, because it's not like there's a chance in hell you two are going to get anything done."  
Hayner, eyes now firmly shut, pressed his hands together as if in prayer and mouthed 'I love you' to Olette, just as Pence breathed the words "You're my hero..." before the two of them fell asleep on each other.  
Roxas could only look on in confused disbelief as the trio continued on without him, without a thought of his whereabouts, even his mere existence. Nothing to indicate he had even once been a small part of their lives.  
"What the fuck is happening to me?"

* * *

_It has to be something concerning the photo thief from before_, Roxas mused, shoes scuffing up a small dustcloud behind him as he traipsed down the slope towards the waterfront. _Except this time, they took my - my what, existence? My form? Ugh, this doesn't make sense..._

Ahead of him, almost just out of sight, he could see three figures walking side by side, happily laughing and joking. He frowned, frown turning into a scowl the longer he followed them, ignoring everything else in sight, ignoring the sounds of the once-too-familiar seaside and the wind whistling across the grassy dunes.

_Or even the...whatev- whoever the fuck it was in those tunnels. Probably just another one of Seifer's jerks. Fucking firecracker-heads._

_Wait, what?_

Roxas turned, a blur on his own heels as something tall and black flashed past him, came to a juddering halt in the sand.

"Well, fancy seeing _you_ here, kid."

"Don't call me kid!"

The scream tumbled out of his mouth before he had a chance to react, properly, and he stood there dumbfounded at the lack of coherence between his brain and lips, until his eyes fixated on the red hair, facial tattoos and strange garb the stranger was wearing.

"So...you do remember me, huh?"

"...Get real, asshole. I've never seen you before in my entire life, and I think I'd remember a creep like you." Roxas bit out, furious at himself, but curious all the same.

"I'm flattered that you think I'm worth the attention. Roxas, isn't it?" The words tumbled lightly from his mouth like sepia lies and Roxas blinked, unable to say anything, too fixated to the spot by his rage and unending confusion.

"Uh."

"Well, gotta go. You know how it is. People to see, Nobodies to hunt down and kill. Catch you later, maybe?"

"Wait, Ax-"

A cluster of smoke and fire and blackness enveloped the man, wry sad smile and all, and took him away from Roxas' outstretched hands, and he was left with nothing but the scent of hot sand and singed grasses in the salted winds.

* * *

Roxas sat at home (some home it was with his parents and friends ignoring him, not even wilfully missing him) the next day, brooding over the black-coated stranger's disappearance in between sneaking food from the refridgerator and staring desperately at his parents' faces in the pictures. Where even were they? It made no sense. If he was the only person who could see Roxas, bad dye-job and all, then he'd have to be the one Roxas got the answers from.

Answers required questions. And questions required...

The shine of hard metal caught his eye in the sunlight, carelessly tossed away and hidden in a drawer for too long. Possibly a little too extreme, but...well, hadn't it been incredibly boring around here for far too long?

This was going to take a surprising amount of effort.

* * *

[playlist: lazy afternoons]

"Do you ever think that we'll forget each other?" Roxas suddenly mumbles.  
Hayner turned to stare at him as if he'd just drowned his goldfish. "Dude, what? Don't be an idiot!"  
Pence giggled, still blissed out after a perilous amount of ice-cream and a generous amount of weed. Olette merely turned her face away, as if to hide a smile that never existed.  
"I mean it!" Roxas insisted, sitting up furiously and punching Hayner in the arm. "I won't let it happen."  
"Sure, sure," Hayner yawned, wavng a hand lazily and curling back up in the lazy afternoon sun. Before long, the cold would start creeping in and he had every intention of making the best of the warmth, Roxas' words of Doom be damned. "Seriously, lie the fuck back down. We're not going anywhere."  
Roxas didn't look particularly convinced, but laid back down against the warm grass. It was an odd sort of communion, their half-dozing in the saccharine-soaked sunrays.  
For a moment, it almost felt like it would last forever.

* * *

"Get away from me, _freak_," Roxas hissed, stalking past around the corner, out of sight.  
The red flame-haired stranger looked almost worried for a moment, forehead furrowed, before stepping backwards and shrugging.  
"The name's Axel," he murmured slowly. "But I suppose that'll do, for now."  
Roxas hissed at him in reply, and rounded another corner in the endless maze of white corridors, almost stalking headlong into Lexaeus before disappearing out of sight. As he passed, Lexaeus patted Axel on the shoulders, almost sending him crashing to the floor.  
"Give him time. He'll come around."  
"Yeah, when Kingdom Hearts sprouts wings and starts burning," he muttered, finding the nearest door he could and slamming it, noisily.

* * *

"I've been waiting here for you."

The stranger, silver chains swinging in the slight breeze, cocked his head to one side and unfolded his arms.

"How...unusual of you. Not got somewhere else to be?"  
"No, not really," Roxas spat out, extricating himself from the wall and sidling forwards.  
"What about your friends?"  
Roxas raised an eyebrow, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. "What, them? The guys in the Struggle match? They're not my _friends_."  
"Seemed pretty friendly to me. Important, if you were following them around, even."  
"How important are they? I'm sure someone with a _heart_ could answer that question."  
He swung the keyblade around madly, snarling as he narrowly missed Axel's taut neck. Axel pulled back, almost tripping backwards over a loose cobblestone, and throwing him completely off-balance.  
"Roxas, don't - "  
"You don't _know_ me!" Roxas screamed wildly, lashing out with knees, feet, legs, teeth, fingers, nails, anything to rail against this impending sense of betrayal and loss and horror in the pit of his stomach. The feeling only grew worse as their eyes connected, and he felt something akin to tears well up where they shouldn't. "You don't know _them_."  
"I think," Axel said quietly, backing down and catching his breath, "that I know you better than you think I do. Let me explain?"  
"You can explain in hell," Roxas bit out, strangely calm, before moving in close at a speed Axel could only blink at, and using the hilt of the keyblade to strike the red-haired stranger's head, knocking him out cold. The body crumpled to the floor, and Roxas studied it carefully for a moment, noting the pale skin, the brown roots of the spiked hair, the teardrop tattoos on his cheeks. A strange character, to be sure, but perhaps no stranger than the ones in this town.  
"Or, you know, over dinner and a movie, but it's not like you're gonna pay, is it, mister unconscious beanpole," he muttered, kicking him in the side. "Suppose I'd better get you someplace safe. Somewhere...uninhabited." A thought struck him, being in the absence of friends.  
_The mansion_.

* * *

_Restoration at 43%._

* * *

[playlist: dayvan cowboy]

It's called '_the killing daze_'.

Axel's seen this look in his eye before, seen the glory and the arrogance and the wickedness wrapped up all in one in his little blond fury, witnessed the keyblades whirling through the air like silent wraiths borne over quiet breaths. It's a terrifying stare on one perhaps a little too young for this profession, a little too _old_, and definitely something rarely observed in close quarters. It only occurs when there are but the two of them, deep in combat, blood pouring around them like rain. And Axel hears this tiny little hitch in Roxas' breath (and of course he can hear Roxas, because they're always close, they're fighting back-to-back and Axel is hyperaware of every single movement his partner makes because someone has to be), this tiny little wicked sigh, and his eyes close for a brief moment. When they reopen, that part of Roxas that he loves so dearly is almost wrapped away in a haze, like steel wool, rasping away the benign layer beneath, only to reveal a monster. Roxas is nimble, like Larxene, and as brutal as Saix when the lust takes him, and as quickly as the rage begins, it ends with Heartless wisping away at his feet, and the scraping of the keyblades against the floor. The harsh, hard eyes melt away, closing again, and a long, deep breath. His Roxas again. His, brought back from the edge, from which he wishes its end. Every time Roxas falls to it, he's dead for longer, numb and relentless for a little longer each time, and every time Axel panics, but can only step back and allow the space the cleaving metal demands, lest he too fall beneath Roxas' blades, whirling ever closer. The most he can do is watch, and wait, and eliminate any Heartless Roxas ignores with his own scything chakrams. .  
It's not a fun thing to watch.

_At some point_, he reconsiders, _the kid is gonna break, and break hard._ Axel doesn't want to be the one waiting for that to happen either, but given a choice?

Axel would watch, and wait forever.

* * *

He opened his eyes.

_Tied to a chair. In a dark room. This bodes well. _

Axel flexed a little, as much as the tightly bound ropes allowed him. It would have taken less than a moment to burn them through, but he decided to allow Roxas this one small victory. He eased back in the high-backed chair, grinning lazily. It wouldn't take long and, after all, he had time to kill. It would be easy to convince Roxas back - after all, hadn't he known the kid best, back in the day? He'd be eating out of his hand within minutes.  
All he had to do was gently knock some sense back into him, and somehow get him to remember and everything ought to be fine.

Somehow.

_Suppose I'd best wait for the fucker to get back in here, then._

"Right on time. You're awake."

The devil himself. Axel smirked to himself. _Kid always had a knack for turning up like that. _ "So. You gonna let me go, or what?"

The kid laughed sharply, finishing with a blank, almost uninterested look. "Yeah. Right. No. See, I have a really good friend here, and he's going to help me figure out what you're about. Seeing as you turned up around the time my friends stopped realising I exist. So."

He slipped out something dull, something short, and flicked a blade out, sharp and functional, holding it up against the air like he were framing Axel from afar. Suddenly, this wasn't quite so amusing any more, and the grin on his face was only heightening the panic in the air. Axel began to heat the air in his palms, furiously, anything to burn out the ropes holding him, but then Roxas moved, positioned right up against him, switchblade unfaltering as it arced towards his arms, and cut deeply in both, scarlet crimson spurting outwards in reply. Axel hissed, attempting to pull backwards, all heat lost in the moment, but could do nothing but sit and watch, horror spreading over his own face like the blood over Roxas', mouth open and grinning wickedly.

"Just you try resisting my questions now, huh?"

* * *

Roxas paused a moment, eyes reflecting the cool glare of the computer screen, and allowed the small blade to rest by his side. Stepping backwards, he admired his handiwork, grimacing a little at the quiet noise emanating from the chair. He coughed, and the bedraggled red-haired figure raised its head as much as it were able, wincing in the light. A small pearl of blood gathered at a small vertical incision beneath an eye, sat there for a second - perfectly formed - before trickling downward, striking the floor; pooling almosnt silently around his boots.  
"I think that's enough for now," Roxas murmured, wiping a touch of moisture from Axel's face.  
Axel said nothing, letting his head bow again in exhaustion. Roxas cocked his head in slight surprise, placing a finger beneath his chin and lifting, so he were better able to bore into those remarkably green eyes.  
"Why don't you tell me more, Axel - if that _is_ your real name? Tell me what this mansion is for, at least."  
He wandered up to the screens, haphazardly hung and wired together in such a way that it was almost impossible to see where one cable ended and another began.  
"What are they monitoring?" he wondered aloud, resting the small switchblade on the keyboard, and leaning in closer to better read the dials.  
"What makes you think _I_ know?" Axel finally choked, resting his entire weight upon the armrests to get a better view of the room. "I'm just some general reconnaissance dogsbody, that's all. Nothing _special_," he lied, wincing as he tested his mouth with his tongue, eventually spitting out a bloody tooth.  
"_Bullshit_." Roxas folded his arms, looking thoroughly unconvinced. "I've seen five of you fuckers waltz in and out of this place - hell, all over Twilight Town - you've clearly got something to do with it all. And given _you're_ the only one who can see me, you're going to have to answer my questions. Sit pretty for a little while longer and I might carve you a new smile, how about that?"  
Axel could only watch as Roxas raised the blade again and walked towards him.

* * *

The mansion gates seemed less tall, now. With Namine gone, the place seemed strangely sad - no longer the forbidding terrace it had been so long ago. _So long ago,_ Roxas thought, the irony not escaping him.

Roxas stepped away from the wrought iron, thinking of the time a tall man with a long black coat had spelt his _other_name out in the air, before giving him the one he was wearing now. _I can give you purpose_, he'd said. Clasping the bars between his hands, staring back into the deserted front garden, he thought about another memory - Axel hot against his heels, mad laughing, a chase, hot scalding warmth as he'd collapsed on top of him, a strange kind of amused humming coming from Axel's mouth. The grass was soft and sweet below them, after they'd wriggled out from their coats, and they'd lain there for awhile, perhaps too long, melted ice-cream in their hair. Axel had fallen asleep - a strange occurrence, but Roxas had taken it to mean his prior mission had tired him out too much, as opposed to the level of trust it really signified - and after a good amount of pushing and shoving, Roxas had eventually given up and acquiesced to the feeling of having six feet of sinew stretched across him in the shade. Comfortable. It had felt safe, in a way the Castle never had. It was also the time Roxas realised that wherever Axel was, that was where home was, irrefutably and completely. It didn't feel right when they were apart. Once upon a time, Roxas had thought that was all friendship was, back when Axel still mocked him for his lack of understanding and words to properly express himself. Perhaps all in the beginning it had been was duty to the Organization, in some kind of outdated everchanging hierarchical system Roxas could never quite understand. And for a while, if Axel's reports were to be believed, it had been nothing but duty. Roxas had been a pain to guide, to look after, to constantly babysit for the first week or two. Axel had probably hated it, being lumped with the new kid as punishment for less severe misdeeds.  
And then three months later, and Axel was asleep, half-curled around him in the waning sun. It seemed almost like a dream now, Roxas thought, half-smiling, half-frowning. _Too good to be anything but a dream._

Dreams were more painful some days than the memories.

* * *

[playlist: we like you when you're awkward]

Axel wasn't sure when Roxas gave him something irreplaceable. Maybe he'd decided he didn't need it any more. Not much use for a heart in their occupation. "_Just gets in the way,_" he'd said, before leaving for good. "_Maybe you can make something of it instead?_"  
Afterward, Axel put it in Roxas' box of seashells, to keep it safe. No sense in bleeding outside the occasion, after all.

Roxas often asked the most cutting questions the last few weeks. He'd returned from a particularly testy solo mission and retired straight to his quarters - and Axel had been unobtrusively waiting by the entrance for him - but Roxas must have snuck in some other way, becasue the next thing Axel remembered hearing was a strange kind of keening noise, halfway between a panicked scream and a whimper; he legged it as fast as he could through the hallways until he came to Roxas' door, and pushed it open without bothering to wait for an acknowledgement.  
Roxas was kneeling in the middle of the room, reddening bedsheets drawn up around him and bunched around his shoulders, like some kind of makeshift blanket.  
"Roxas - what -?"  
There was a scalpel in Roxas' right hand (_ - Vexen's_, Axel thought dimly. They'd have to install locks for his lab...) and the zip on his coat had been pulled down, exposing a pale chest with a very long, precise cut on the right hand side. _There was quite a lot of blood_, Axel thought. _Surely that was impossible?_  
Roxas looked up, eyes red and raw, and bit his lip.  
"What did you do?" Axel asked carefully, sliding the door behind him, and approaching slowly, against his better judgement to just rush up and gather him up tightly.  
"Axel?"  
""Just...tell me. Give me that, come on."  
He wrested the blade from his surprisingly firm grip, before dropping to a knee, staring deep into those eyes. Stupidly blue eyes. Too perfect a blue to be entirely human. He pocketed the blade, face impassive even as it cut into his skin.  
"You said," Roxas whispered, and the tone was unmistakeably accusatory, no missing that, " - you said we didn't have hearts."  
For a moment, Axel was taken aback, momentarily speechless. "We don't," was the only reply he could muster.  
"Then how..." Roxas gestured angrily to the incision on his chest. "I'm bleeding. Axel, I'm _bleeding_." More panicked now, uncontrollably shaking.  
"That shouldn't be - it can't be, Rox. You just got bled on, that's all. Some new kind of Heartless, or something, right?"  
"Heartlesses don't bleed, jackass. But I do."  
That couldn't have been...pride?  
"But...if I don't have a heart, how am I bleeding?"  
Roxas was trembling again. Instead of replying, Axel merely pulled him into his lap, gently rocking him on his knee, his head resting on Roxas' own.  
"I don't know, Rox. I don't know."

* * *

Axel left Roxas' room a few hours later. To his chagrin, Saix was standing outside, shit-eating grin firmly in place.  
"Nerves, hmm? Happens to all of us. Well," he amended smugly, " - perhaps not _all_ of us..."  
Axel, with only the satisfaction an ex-lover could give, decked him, and walked off.

* * *

_Restoration at 79%._

* * *

"I suppose you think it's funny that you know everything about me, and I know nothing of you, right?"

Axel shook his head, dumbly.

"It's not, you know. It's not funny that I remember bits and pieces here and there, the more I talk to you. Your name is Axel. You had some other name, once, but it's not important right now. You hate the rain, you're lazy as hell, and you've got the biggest fucking mouth in existence. Am I right?"

A half-snort, muffled by wetness. "More right than you'll ever know."

"Were we..." He toyed with the thoughts lodged in his throat before answering. "Acquaintances? More than that, surely. Lovers? We were..."

Roxas settled on a final thought.

"We were friends," Roxas murmured, the keyblade pressing deeper, a welt burning into Axel's neck. "Best friends, right?"

Axel choked, fingernails white and straining against the armrests, as the Dusks watched impassively from the sidelines, edges flickering like glitches in a video game. Somewhere in the time it had taken for Axel to break down completely, the Samurai had slid forwards, flanking each other to form a perfect circle, shadowing Roxas' face; now they stared, eyeless faces facing towards him.

_Eyes just like Sora's_, Axel thought, grimacing. _This is the last time I get involved_.

He raised his eyes to meet Roxas', frantic crazed sky blue, searching for any sign of anything he'd known, perhaps almost loved before. The ragged breathing faltered for a moment as he dared to look, as the grip on the keyblade loosened, a tiny part of his Roxas bleeding through the eyes. Panic.

"Run away with me," he whispered, using all his strength to warm the external metallic layer of the keyblade, electrons vibrating faster and faster, until Roxas could no longer stand it and dropped it. The resounding crash melted away just like the weapon, disappearing into the ether.

"...What?"

"You heard." The faintest of voices, and even now, he struggled to make eye-contact with him, with his Roxas.

Roxas half-laughed, half-spat: "Because _running away _worked so well last time, didn't it, Axel? Didn't it? You - half-dead in Castle Oblivion, me - hunted down by the rest of _His_ lackeys, Xion -"

He looked away, down at the floor, voice breaking, eyes suddenly shocked at what he'd just said. Murmured something. Axel couldn't hear him, not even from this close.

"But you're too late," he whispered.  
Axel stared as Roxas _reached_ out -

* * *

"I've been having these...weird thoughts, lately," Roxas confided, "Like - is any of this for real, or not?"  
"You are _such_ a space case," Hayner cackled.  
"Like you can talk," Pence snorted. "I can still smell the weed on you, bro."  
Hayner waved a dismissive hand. "Oh, pssh. Like you weren't in on it too."  
"Oh, shut up," Roxas replied, rolling his eyes. "You know what I mean. Like, this summer's just...too good to be true, or something."  
Hayner turned to look at him incredulously. "Too good to be true? Seifer and his gang stalking us through the woods is _too good to be true?_Don't you remember?"  
Roxas blinked, trying to remember. "Uh..."  
"Nevermind," Pence shook his head. "All of you. You're all terrible. And seriously, Roxas, you gotta stop going through Hayner's stash."  
"But I - "  
"Guys, I brought ice-cream!"  
Pence looked over towards Olette, immediately scrambling to his feet. "Oh, sweet. I knew there was a reason I loved you."  
Olette sighed, almost motherly, and handed one to each of them, whispering to Roxas. "Just ignore them."  
Roxas nodded, licking his sea-salt ice-cream, and wondering what it was he was supposed to remember.

* * *

"Random fucking red-haired strangers," Roxas muttered to himself, stalking away.  
"Axel works too," he offered, scratching his mane and sighing deeply. Then it struck him.  
"Hey. Hey, _kid!_ Do you like...ice-cream?"

* * *

[playlist: automatic systematic habit]

"You're not terribly important to me," Roxas had said one day, whilst they were out culling Heartless. "You know that, right?"  
At the time, knee-deep in the little dark things and visibly struggling to keep up with Roxas' endlessly effortless battle dance, Axel had only laughed at him, hefting a chakram up and around, slicing through the air. "Sure, Rox. Whatever you say."  
Almost in response, Roxas had whirled around, keyblades moving fast enough to blur in the air, and the acrid scent of dissipating smoke as the metal edges hit the small creatures filled their nostrils. Roxas' back had been hard and unyielding against Axel's own, quickly dispatching those that had been overcoming them both, and eventually, they collapsed against each other, able to breathe easily at last.  
"I meant it," Roxas had said, once they were back in Axel's bed, curled up into each other. "You're not, you know. Important."  
"Mmmhmm," Axel had replied, teasing a hand through his hair. "That's why you're here, with me, right now. I believe you, short-stack. Thousands wouldn't."  
"No, you don't..." A frustrated sigh, shake of the head. "You don't get it. You _can't_ be, you see. It's not like our existence has any meaning. And so you can't be important."  
"Don't you get metaphysical with me this late in the night," Axel had mock-warned, with his fingers roaming further down, as if moving in for a ticklefight.  
A snort, fingers pushed away, and an eyebrow raised. "Physical? Bit late for that."  
"Just...shut up and sleep, Rox."  
The words had stung a little deeper than either of them realised, and when they eventually did, it was almost too late.

* * *

There's a ferocity in the way he swings his weapons, swirling dervish-like, a wraith in the dissipating darkness, completely unlike his usual carefree attitude. Eyes narrowed and knuckles white from exertion, he continues spinning, gracefully courting a dance with his foes, carefuly tense and thorough. He's alone this time, but it doesn't faze him, this time, he's been abandoned for too long to let this new unwanted, unthought of betrayal affect his performance too much. If anything, his movements are tighter, footwork flawless, as he dispatches these Heartless to the next life, or just oblivion.

_Roxas has changed him_, he realises, as he catches himself snarling back in the fury of the moment, slicing its head apart three ways to mist-ribbons. Laziness to desperation, laid-back attitude to ferocity, apathy to rage; he couldn't even begin to count the ways. Saix had remarked upon his transition of docility to hostility over breakfast one morning, and he was still sporting a bruised jaw three weeks later. No one had seen fit to bother him about his moods since, which suited Axel just fine.

* * *

"Heard you fucked Marluxia once," Axel mentioned, offhand, careless, reigning in his curiosity as much as he were able; in his arms, Roxas snorted, looking upwards, eyebrow quirked.  
"Marluxia? The fuck've you been talking to? Demyx? I'll kill him."  
"So..." Axel buried his face teasingly into Roxas' hair, breathing in deeply. "That's a no?"  
Roxas looked at him for a moment, as if Axel had just suggested they ought to sprout wings and fly off to fucking Agrabah for a holiday. _Fucking sand. Fucking everywhere._  
Fuck that.  
"Of _course_ it's a fucking no, you jerk. Marluxia's an arse. Plus, I have _standards_."  
Axel let out a small sigh of relief - one he didn't realise he'd been holding. Then grinned.  
"Now I have to go tell him you said that."  
Roxas let out a small scream and attempted to strangle him with a pillow. Axel only laughed, allowing Roxas to batter him with it senselessly, until he feigned suffocation just well enough that Roxas paused for a moment, face creased into the best approximation of worry Axel could imagine thus far, with his jaw slack and eyes closed. Roxas was getting better at faking these kinds of things, he'd noticed. Perhaps he'd become better at them than the rest of the Organization could ever hope to be.

An hour later, with Roxas beneath him, considerably fucked out and snarling in pleasure, Axel considered the thought: perhaps he wasn't faking them at all.

* * *

"I read a book this one time," Roxas said conversationally, rolling open the pack on the floor. Axel chanced a look downwards, and was met with a row of gleaming steel, sharpened to a point. "This book said that the seat of all emotion rested in the heart and that to get someone to reveal their thoughts, their very intentions, the best thing to do - " he raised a small scalpel " - was to cut them. Bleed them, as it were."  
Axel's breath caught in his throat. "What exactly - you can't be serious. That's fucking _medieval_. Rox, it's _me_. I've told you everything I can."  
"Everything you _can_, huh? The implications of which would be that there are more facts you could be telling me, but don't _want_ to?"  
"Rox, give it a rest," Axel attempted to say, but Roxas moved so quickly - scalpel pressed against his lips - that he was, effectively, silenced.  
"I mean, if you could be trusted, then perhaps I wouldn't have to resort to these desperate measures," Roxas continued, blithely increasing the pressure of the flat of the blade. "But I don't _know_ you. Axel, was it? I'll tell you who I did know, though. Hayner. Pence. Olette."  
He stressed every syllable of their name with a darkening frown, "Names ring any bells? They were _programmed_ to back off at the slightest instance of anything strange, weren't they? This is a fucking riot, this is. _My_ friends, made up of pixels and bad coding. You think I didn't see them in there? In those monitors? _They_ were my friends. Not you. Them. All this time."  
"Roxas." Axel was deadly, quietly serious this time, all jokiness placed aside. "_I'm_ your friend. I _know_ you. You wouldn't - "  
"No, you don't! You don't know what I'll do." A scream, laced with desperation. Roxas straddled Axel, resting his head on his bony shoulders and nestling into his hair, savouring the warmth of the coat. Maybe he was kidding himself into thinking the scent lingering there was familiar, but it certainly wasn't unpleasant, not least whilst he was still breathing.  
"And you're not my friend. Not yet." _Not this time_. "Even if you were. So. Tell me _everything, Axel_. Make everything...as it should be."

* * *

"I could kill you," Roxas whispered to the brown-haired boy, trapped in the petals of memory and thought and hope. "I could kill you," he reiterated over and over, raising his voice a little until he was half-screaming the words to believe them, an inch separating their faces. Roxas pressed a hand to the silver pod, the colour glistening and swirling as if it were moving in response to his touch._ He looks so peaceful_, he mulled over as his pulse raced throughout his skin. _So peaceful. I suppose it's a mercy, really_, he thought, raising both hands away from his body as the keyblades fused into being. _Mercy that you get to die in your sleep, no thoughts of your own. It'll be like you never existed in the first place._  
Roxas shut his eyes, furiously blinking away the tears that could not, would not fall. "Who died and made _you_ so special, Keyblade Wielder?" he muttered, wiping his eyes against a pale wrist.  
"It's my turn to live now."  
The words echoed around the room, stronger now in half-silence. Selfishness.  
"It's _my_ turn."  
A wrenching sigh.  
"Please?"

* * *

The remnants of the glass monitors lay shattered, broken around his strangely shiny new sneakers. He knew why that was, now, he thought - why they'd never aged a day since he'd bought them all those _years_ ago - wryly hefting the weapon from one hand to another, testing out the weight. Satisfied with the damage, he stalked out of the room, metal edge grating on the floor, trailing sparks.

"_Let it all burn_," he whispered, as the wires cracked and warped under the rising heat, before turning his attention away, to the next room.

* * *

Axel raised his head at the sound of metal scraping the scuffed wooden floor; the sound grew louder and louder, almost unbearably so, until Roxas appeared in the threshold, eyes red and realisation painted all over his face. There was sadness written there too, Axel saw, through the mist hazing over his vision. Something more than the sum of his previously meagre parts.

The Samurai surrounding them stepped closer still.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, raising one keyblade above his head, tears trickling down and catching the curve of his cheek _just so_ before falling to the dusty floor. "You weren't meant to live. I wasn't meant..."

He stared into the green, confusion shifting to awareness to knowledge to _oh_ -

_I wasn't meant to love._

The keyblade came down, cleaving flesh from bone, and Roxas stared at the empty chair until the keyblade fell from his hands, vanishing before it hit the floor. Something slipped beneath the chair and he leant down to check; lying in a small pile was a smaller version of the coat Axel had worn - raising it to eye-level, it looked the perfect size. Roxas shrugged it on, barely thinking, and zipped it up.

The lights shattered, and the only noise left was the sound of his own ragged breathing, echoing in the darkness.

* * *

[playlist: a small red flame]

"Roxas. Roxas? Hey, _Roxas_."  
He knows that drawl. Overly familiar, a touch of laughter behind his name. It's a joke between them, and the voice is amused enough, that's for sure.  
He yawns with the interminable effort of cracking one eye open, light pouring in too fast, too strong, too bright. A blurred shadow partially blocks it from view, and he rubs his eyes to rid himself of the sleep-tears, to bring some sharp coherence to this blurriness. It's warm, he realises, and becomes warmer still when the shadow - the body - above him, collapses onto him gently, and then there's arms, and warmth and a face nestled in his hair.  
"Fuck, your nose is sharp," he mutters, without realising.  
"Jeez, Rox," and this time the voice had the gall to sound affronted. "Here was me, thinking you'd never wake up, and _those're_ your first words to me? I'm hurt. Wounded, even."  
"Oh, shut up."  
He rolls towards the warmth, eyes shut again, until there's skin to bare skin, and he inhales - a dusky, singed kind of smell, like a fireplace burning on the first day of the new year, and he wonders for a moment how he knows that, how _he_ would know such a thing, hailing from sun and sea and sand, but pushes it from his mind when something wet falls on his face, and there's a mouth by his ear, whispering, the body pressed against him shaking. He's confused.  
"What's - what's wro-?"  
"_I thought I'd lost you__," Axel is murmuring, over and over again, until the words fuse into something meaningless, and there are only tears to speak with, and eyes to bury in souls; his arms tighten around Roxas, limp and uncomplaining, dazed and confused, there and now back again. "I thought I'd - thought I'd - " A ragged sigh. This isn't normal, he thinks, not normal, not right, not strong and brave and reckless and all those other qualities Axel supposedly embodies._  
"But you're back now, you're back, and you're _mine_."  
Roxas - it's Roxas this time - and he knows, he _remembers_ - Roxas nudges Axel's eyes open, offers up a small smile, like he'd never been gone in the first place. He gazes into Axel's uncharacteristically distraught face, wondering how on earth anyone would believe they didn't have hearts, didn't have emotions, didn't have feelings. Even if these were shades of the original hearts, they were real enough, for now - real and burning and bright and true.  
"Here to stay, Axel."  
He snorts, wrapping a hand in the soft hair at the nape of Axel's neck, twisting it sharply - wicked grin affixed firmly to his face - like he truely feared nothing, and like the world had everything to fear from him. Trouble incarnate, with the devil's smile. Roxas raised his lips to Axel's ears, whispering close.  
_"There's no place I'd rather - "_

* * *

_Restoration at 99%..._

_...100%._

_Restoration complete. _

_System running at optimum parameters._

_System 2.0 reboot._

_Searching..._

_Online._

* * *

___[playlist: long gone]_

Axel wakes.

There's a ragged breath, harsh and guttural, and he almost doesn't realise it's his own until he begins choking on his own saliva, dizzy and disorientated. He pulls away the straps, the electrodes - he's been hooked up for longer than he realises, and his body is weak, weaker than before after the beating he just took. He hadn't been sure whether he'd wake up or not. The kid - Roxas - he thinks, painfully lifting himself with his weary arms, had done a fucking number on him, that was for sure.

It would take time to find him again. It seemed unlikely, somehow, that Roxas would be easy to find, and capture, if necessary. Perhaps a few lifetimes, if he knew Roxas like he thought he had. Maybe instead he'd find Sora, this kid for whom Roxas was supposedly a mere sketch of, a painting half-finished, barely coloured in - maybe he'd find Sora and somehow find Roxas with him.

He taps a series of commands into the screen by his head, locating the memory pod in the real world. The time it takes his fingers to respond is agonisingly slow - ridiculously so, in fact. Finally the computer beeps three times at him, and he winces at the sudden noise, face morphing into resignation when he realises the pod no longer exists. Sora has left the building. Roxas no longer exists. Sora has gone and taken all traces of Roxas with him. Axel's cheeks begin to burn as disbelief takes root.

Roxas no longer exists.

He screams, punching through the screen as hard as his weakened body is able. The glass cracks into shards, piercing his knuckles like icy fits of rage. There's fire, as well, unexpected and uncontrollable, and it spreads outward from his fingertips, fire-bright lightning-sparks in the darkness. Soon, the entire laboratory is as hot as the blood in Axel's body, raging and uncaring and wild, and he limps out, for a moment his silhouette as strong as ever against the flames. Someone is screaming at him - Vexen, he thinks - and he doesn't bother to speak, just looks directly into their ghostly eyes. They back away, and run back down the pale corridor, the tendrils of blackened walls chasing them away, sullying the white bars of their prison.

Axel begins walking in the other direction. He passes others, blurred colours running towards the heat. There's Demyx, rushing to call up as much water as he's able, surfing ungracefully down to the blaze, almost toppling over as the waves begin growing in size, as does his careless grin. A blur, as he imagines Zexion running faster than Axel's ever seen him move, running to protect the only things he's ever held dear -the precious books he surrounded himself with instead of the Organization, a thousand substitutes for each one of them, and far more communicative - if Axel didn't already know better, he would have suspected that they had become his only bedfellows once Vexen had lost all interest in his little protegé. Strange perhaps, what each one of them had decided to cling to, in the absense of emotion. Larxene's shadow dances past him, her whooping cackle echoing in his ears, and she slaps him on the back, his stony face completely lost on her gleeful madness; Marluxia follows her, sweeping through the corridors majestically as if he were present again, and not just an imaginary thorn in everyone's side.

Xemnas looks him in the eye, imperiously, almost causing Axel to pause in sheer fury and panic, and then turns away, continues walking slowly towards the blaze, issuing calm commands to Saix, ever a step behind. Saix ignores Axel, doesn't even bother to look up, and that suits Axel fine, suits him that his friend is forever lost to him, because somewhere else, there's a promise of something, someone better, someone who treats him as an equal and not just a stepping stone to something more valuable than him. Isa was lost to him the moment they joined the Organization, and as much as it pained Lea to admit to that, Axel doesn't care for it any more.

From a corridor branching off behind him, he hears Luxord swear in disbelief, closely followed by the sound of something shattering, the fragments spinning out from the epicentre and striking his boots; he merely steps over the pieces, and continues on until he reaches the solid doors before him. No turning back now. No returning to this uncertain state, this pause in failed humanity.

Lexaeus is waiting there in the shadows. Calm, stolid as always. He assesses Axel for a second, perhaps three. He understands, black eyes boring into his fire-green ones, watching him blaze silently. I have to, Axel thinks, and Lexaeus nods, and stands aside, closing the door silently behind him.

Outside the white keep, Axel courts the storm, blind fury in his eyes, and doesn't look back.

* * *

When the Nobodies take him, he considers it a mercy it wasn't Roxas' hands around his throat this time. Perhaps next time, there'll be more than a shadow of the Thirteenth present, less than the barest memory. Perhaps next time there'll be some kind of reconciliation, and neither will have to suffer the fleshwounds of the other, of some Others, even; but Axel realises, it's going to be a long time coming, and he doesn't have that time needed, doesn't have any time, because he really doesn't exist, and he was never going to be anything more than a lost-and-never-found child of the in-between.

Sora's eyes are leaking at the edges, now, and whilst his legs begin to dissipate into - into the Nothingness? into inexistence? - Axel tries to move a hand to sweep his tears away, precious shining things, but his hands won't move, they refuse to obey. Sora chokes something out, but Axel can't hear him now, can barely see him - and he ponders over how light he feels without the weight of a soul holding him down - chest melting into black smoke and he breathes in one last-

* * *

___" - I'd rather be."_  
"You've got low standards, kid."  
"You call me _kid_ one more fucking time and I'll deck you."  
"Hey, until you stop caterwauling, I'll patronize you as much as I like. You're like what - twelve?"  
"Sixteen, _asshole_, and for your information, I'll sing it as much as I like. _'Take me down to the - mmmf!'_ "  
"Thaaaat's it. No more ice cream for you, mister."  
"Gefgfg yuff hanfss iffshmy!"  
"Sorry, couldn't hear a word there. Speak up?"  
Roxas bit him. Axel yowled, the perfect example of mock-affrontion, before holding up his hand in the waning sunlight and inspecting it. Roxas grinned, ever-smug, and took the opportunity to steal a salted blue bite.  
"Hey, aren't we missing something?"  
"Like what, dickweed?"  
Like high-pitched giggling and an unsweetened smile with tiny little hands and the daintiest little nails and "Mmm. Dunno. For a moment, I thought...nah. Gimme a kiss."  
Roxas rolled his eyes and leaned in, mock-obediently. "One fuckin' day, you're gonna wish I'd never walked into your life. You know that?"  
"Like fuck I will. Not with you fucking me three ways to Friday, anyway." The famous grin, before he pulled the younger one close, pressed up against his shoulder a little too tightly. "Anyway. Let me have this, if nothing else, yeah?"  
"Gods, you're such a sap." Roxas pushed him away, dusting off his cloak and licking his lips before standing, to wrap his arms around Axel's neck, whispering in his ears with a gentle grace Axel didn't think he had. He imagined the sultry, wicked grin he was sure was there, wrapping each word in double-meanings and lies.  
"Not that you were listening, but, there's no fucking place I'd rather be than not where you're not. Memorise _that_, bright eyes."  
He tapped the side of Axel's unruly mane once, twice, before ducking around the corner, out of sight once more.

One day, Axel reasoned, he'd catch up to the little firecracker, diverging paths and all. But not today.

For now, he'd just watch and wait forever, because that was what friends did for each other, right?

"Guess we'd better RTC. You coming?"

Axel looked up, surprised to see Roxas, having clearly ducked back around after him. "You're still here?"

"What did I say to you not ten seconds ago?" he replied, rolling eyes just so, and reaching a hand out. Axel took it, and they walked back through their portal, hand in hand.

All as it should be.

_fin._


End file.
